


be in my book

by Tofuu (Plumbus)



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, i wanted more rich/jer content so i did this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 21:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16049129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plumbus/pseuds/Tofuu
Summary: Out of all the things Jeremy thought Rich was, an avid reader (a.k.a bookworm) wasn’t among the list.





	be in my book

**Author's Note:**

> this is old and bad but i wanted to start posting here yeehaw

Jeremy can’t say he’s been to the school’s library a lot, but for sure it was never this big. The smell of old books clogged up in his nostrils and a layer of dust covered every surface in the room. This left him red-nosed after his fifth time rubbing his nose on his sleeve. He also can’t say this is his favorite place in school.

He treaded through aisles of bookshelves and some desks, letting his fingers trace and drag as he passed them. The quietness of this place left him a little unsettled. Scratching at his nape, he takes a curve on another isle of towering shelves. He stops. Jeremy swears he’d seen that book cover twice. His hands met his hair while his fingers muddled a few curls. Which aisle did he come from in the first place?

The school’s library wasn’t very big or fancy, but Jeremy Heere being Jeremy Heere managed to forgot which direction he came from. He lend a glance over at the books seated against each other. Technicolor covers jumping in front of dull gray diaries. He meekly tries to pick out one of them, pushing in a row of books into the other side of the shelf. A gap opens like a gate as more books dip into the other side of the aisle. 

Jeremy’s hand quickly recoiled. He wiped it on his jeans, leaning forth a bit to look in the space left by the fallen books. Maybe he’d leaned in a bit too briskly, as a sharp pain shot in his nose. He stepped back and-

“Ow,” 

This wince, however, was not his own. His gaze hopped up to the gap in the shelf, where a wide-eyed face popped up. Shit-

“Oi, tall-ass, is that you?”

His shoulders slumped a little as he leaned back in, clutching the book in with one arm. Jeremy’s eyebrows meet. 

“Rich? What…” He itched the root of his hair again, tilting his head, “What are you doing here?” 

Rich’s eyebrows rose before he let out a snort, “what are /you/ doing here?”

“What are-” “Stop answering my questions with questions.”

Jeremy huffed. Rich’s eyes grinned from where he was barely visible, clearly on the tip of his toes to see into the other shelf.

He sighs, “Anyways. What are you doing?” Jeremy asked him again, walking around the shelf. He saw the shorter boy kneel down to pick up fallen books, only pausing to look up at Jeremy as he walked over. This was when Rich decided to not reply with a question. The corners of his mouth curled when he sighed and pulled himself up to his feet.  
“Oh, you know,” Rich clicked his pen, “crosswords.”

“/Crosswords/,” Jeremy echoes, lifting his chin at that.

“What? I can be intellectual too.”

He shook his head, “It just doesn’t sound like you.” It didn’t.

The other boy smiled with both his lips and his eyes, clicking the pen again while he walked past Jeremy. He pulled out a chair from one of the desks. There, he spread out a notepad.  
“True.” He said. “I was noting down every time this character said ‘bloody hell’.” 

Jeremy hummed.

“And said ‘fuck’.” He grinned. They both did.  
“Yeah, that’s more like what I was expecting.”

He spun around in the little office chair, its wheels rattling on the floor. “What did you expect?”

“Kinda- uh- thought you’d circle out every time Shakespeare makes a dick joke or something.”  
Rich spins the chair back around. “Already did that.”

The desk he chose was busy with books stacked on it, spiral notepads, notebooks and papers alike sprawled around of him. He sat with his elbows sitting on the table, the pen clicking ever present. The book in front of him was wide with pages, cover worn at the tips. From where he could see, the paper had gained a sunkissed tan shade. Jeremy wrinkled his nose at the smell of old books.

“Are those all yours?”

“Huh?”

“The books!... No, I mean- did you read all of those? I-”

“Yeah.”

“...What.”

His eyes jumped back to the books stacked on the desk. They were not one of those thin magazines one would skim over like air. Nope. They were thick, paperback and hardcover books that made Jeremy’s eyes heavy from just trying to assume how many pages they had. 

“For real?” Jeremy wondered. Aloud, he realized. He bit his lip as he saw Rich spin the office chair back around, one foot skidded on the floor.

“I mean- I, uh, didn’t take you for the… Nerd type…?”

“Look who’s talking,” Rich sneered at him.

“No you.”

“Holy shit” is what Rich would have said if his voice hadn’t melted into laughter, cupping his cheeks on his hands. Jeremy blinked at him from where he stood, before chiming a huff a few moments late.

“Nice vocabulary,” He told Jeremy as his laughter faded out into a single snort. He poked at him with the pen, “tall ass.”  
The pen left a blue speck on his shirt. Jeremy poked it away before stepping closer to the desk.

“Don’t call me that, I’m not even that much taller than you.” He sighed. “I just- sorry- I just didn’t take you for the bookworm type.”

“Talk about a downgrade, huh?” Rich scoffed, flipping a page perhaps a bit faster than the previous one. “This is still one of my favorite places in school.”

Jeremy’s eyes travel around in search of a chair. He scooted back with one in hands, taking seat beside him. He found himself following the shorter boy’s gaze as it swam along lines and paragraphs. He seemed really into this. Every time Jeremy tried to read a book he always skipped or spoiled himself in accident. Maybe it’s an individual experience.

“Why didn’t I see you read before?”

Jeremy knew the answer to this. Why he asked anyways? He wanted to hear it from him.

Chances were reply was: SQUIPs and their dedication to perfection,  
Chances also were: Popular kids can’t be sporty AND smart. Bad combo.  
A little of both a) and b), he presumed as Rich’s eyes closed while he sighed. Click. He set aside the pen and notepad, instead sliding the papers closer to himself.  
“Y’know,” He said. “It’s in the High School Social Food Chain rulebook.” He grabbed a pencil, rasping it over the neat paper. Soon, there was a purposely poorly down stick boy.  
“You know how it works.” He starts again, adding an arrow beside the stickman. Or rather, caricature. A familiar caricature, giving its stubby legs and dots for freckles.  
“When you’re at the bottom, people hate you or don’t remember you share chem class with them, when you’re on the top of the pyramid-”

“Everybody loves you?” Jeremy tried.

The pencil quickly danced a stampede over the stickman, and soon he was covered by dark swirling lines. “Wrong,”

“They’re either scared of you or secretly hate you /because/ they’re scared of you or jealous. Maybe both.”  
“Was… That your case?” 

Only one applied to him.

He shook his head and took another page from underneath the scribbled one. He drew the stickman again. This time, he was different. He had put effort into drawing cool shades on him and anime-esque sparkles, but that was not the point. The point was Mr. Stickman now had some slick gelled hair and toned arms. Jeremy snorted. Rich punched his shoulder. Still, it was a cute caricature. Rich drew him on the far top of the page, along with other lazily drawn figures. 

“People will listen to the alphas,” He started again, jabbing the other end of the pencil on the paper. “It may not seem or be right. But if what they say makes sense, people will do it.” He added little crowns to them. “They’re the shepherd dogs to the sheep- everyone else.” Rich pointed out. “If a hot person does something, it’s cool. But if a random dude who isn’t even in their class reads a book then it’s gay and lame.”

Jeremy looks at the other page before he speaks up. “Was it that bad before the SQUIP?”

He huffs at that, “Maybe I grew tired of being tripped in the hallway. People don’t stop walking after you fall, y’know.” At this point, the blond was now only mindlessly scribbling on the paper. Jeremy saw the difference when he tried and when he just didn’t care. But at the last second, the pencil faltered.

“Kinda like what I did to you.”

“You weren’t /that/ bad!... Mostly.” He assured him. Or tried.

When Rich turned to him, his brows bowed, incredulous. “I treated you like trash.” He rasped.

Taking a moment to swat hair out of his face, Jeremy took in air as he meandered to grasp the right words. He itched his nape and thought.  
“Ye… Yeah. But-”

Rich crumpled the papers into a single misshapen ball (or closest equivalent).

“You were- you are sorry right? B- uh- Bad people don’t feel sorry for what they do.” He tried. “Maybe you may not think you’re a good person, but that means you’re not a bad one.”

The other boy sighed through his nose, one edge of his lips jutting up a little.

Jeremy fixed his position in his seat. He hopped forwards a little with the chair. He probably missed the class he was supposed to be at. Probably missed a lot. On a normal situation he’d rush to class the moment it rang.

Then why?

Why did he stay? He knew the answer, perhaps not a verbal answer. But he knew it. 

“I know how it feels to do something against your will.”

He knew.

Before Trainwreck of Events™ (aka Squipocalypse™) derailed, they were nothing more than strangers with nothing in common. Actually, scratch that. They were more for a weird kind of acquaintances, before the SQUIP they were not friends or didn’t reach the enemy area yet. There was nothing in common between them.

After that, they had one thing- two, actually- in common.  
Both have a(n idle) SQUIP and a fucked-up reputation. (Latter more on Rich’s side).

Silence blossomed between them. Jeremy settled his elbows on the table, nesting his head on his forearms. He looked up at Rich, who blinked every second.

“Do you wear contacts?”

This question seemed to have caught the other boy off guard, as he quickly looked the opposite way to meddle with the sheets and notes. 

At last, he replied. “It’s that, or glasses.”

“I mean, you wouldn’t look bad in them…-” Words slipped from his tongue and it was too late to say oops.

Something in the sudden flash of redness in the shorter boy’s cheeks made him want to perhaps make a braver remark. He kept it to himself, smirked instead. Something in the skittish glance he had given him in response only tightened his smile.

“You should go to class.” He heard as Rich fumbled with the papers.

Jeremy shook his head. “Maybe this place isn’t as boring as I thought.”  
They share a glance, laugh.  
Rich deadpans, fairly ineffective with a grin on his face, “Oh man.”


End file.
